Are We There Yet? Romney-Obama Election 2012

Well, it's another election night eve for me, and lord knows I've been through a lot of them. 41 consecutive years of casting votes for somebody since I turned 21, back in 1971.

The year after I turned 21, I worked on the campaign that successfully gave 18 year olds the vote, when I was already legal, as we used to say. Seems it's my life karma to be early or late, never in perfect step. In other words I have always had to bring my own music and make up my own dance as I went along, while time and circumstance did it's own thing. But that's another story. I digress.

Thinking about what we are about to do again, which is to give the reins of government back to Barack Hussein Obama for another four years, makes me happy, sad and nostalgic all at the same time. On this night, this election eve, the climax of a never ending campaign that started on inauguration day 2009, I'm feeling like what Fannie Lou Hamer said, “I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.” This time around, it was too much. Too much information. Too much lying. Too much pontificating and equivocating. My head hurts.

I've been watching elections since before they were televised in color. I've been voting since before somebody dreamed up HDTV.

General Eisenhower is the first president in my memory. I was born during Truman, but not until just before his election. John Kennedy was the first president I loved. It wounded me deeply when he died. Never met Lynchin Bains Johnson. That's what we called him. He signed the Civil Rights Bills into Law, but that didn't endear him to me. Not then.

Rumor had it that he was nuts. We had a crazy man in the White House, who may have had our beloved JFK killed. However, nobody really knows or will ever know who hired the gunmen on the grassy knoll down in Dallas that day.

Nixon was the first president with whom I shook hands, both he and his wife. Didn't vote for him. Wasn't quite old enough to vote against him. Do know I didn't like his bigotry. Smacked of the same ole shit being dished out by the likes of George Wallace and Bull Connor, except this man occupied the White House.

I was still naive enough back in the day to believe that if a man could rise to the level of President, he certainly couldn't also be a bigot or a racist, not really. Silly me.

Gerald Ford, the man who took over for Tricky Dick Nixon was a decent man. I was a working reporter by the time he came into office and I was humbled by the fact that he knew me on sight and called me “jo.” President Carter was another decent man who has been totally disrespected and wrongfully forgotten.

I interviewed Ronald Reagan four times, starting in 1976 at the Republican convention and could never get past the fact that I was talking to an actor, somebody who was playing a part in a B movie. The conversations were great, but I never bought the good guy act. His voodoo economics initiated the downfall of the American Middle Class and the decline of Unions as well as worker's rights.

Daddy Bush, Bill Clinton and Junior Bush were merely days at work...more fun with Clinton, less so with George the elder and George the younger. The younger Bush especially was like hitching a ride across the ocean on a boat named Titanic with no Leonardo DiCaprio to save my ass.

And then comes Barack Obama.

I was not a supporter in the beginning. I didn't believe a Black man could be elected in America. I dreamed of the possibility, but expected to be dead by the time it actually happened. I believed the racists were too strong to let it happen. I still believe they will turn out tomorrow in an attempt to keep him from a second term.

And I still fear for his life. Because in this country, it's a truth that what white men can't control, they kill. They kill when their status quo is threatened, and Barack Obama is the walking, talking example of threat to the complacency of the masters of the universe.

Obama is one of the few people who can move me to tears. I cried when he won in 2008. I cried at his Inauguration. I cried when I heard him speak last night.

But Last night at the UC arena, I also heard within his speech echoes of the last speech of Dr. Martin Luther King, and it bothered me.

“I have been to the mountaintop....”

Those uncomfortable echoes are resting heavily on me tonight, as I write this now.

In the meantime....I will happily vote tomorrow to move this country forward, and wait for what I hope will be a joyous night. History to be made, and a happy ending to be written. A celebration of the 44^th President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama.

To be continued......................................

Ann Coulter Revisited

I should have just republished this yesterday when Ann the man unleashed her latest nastiness..this was published in June, 2006...the more things change..the more they stay the same...

Ann Coulter: Political Punditry's Paris Hilton

I've spent the past several years ignoring the "one note samba" that is political commentator Ann Coulter.

For those of you who don't know, she is a self described far right wing conservative who hates liberals and just loves her some George Bush.

She's got everyone up in arms this week for attacking four women who lost their husbands in the bombing of the World Trade Centers. Coulter accuses the women of reveling in the deaths of their spouses, using their deaths for political and monetary gain.

Coulter makes these accusations while traveling the talk show circuit to promote her latest book. She also doesn't see any problem with Dubya using 9/11 for his political purpose. Or maybe she just didn't see his campaign ads when he was running for re-election. People as busy as her rarely watch TV and I doubt she's even heard of TIVO.

The reason I ignore her is that she says things to get your goat. Things like, The Emancipation Proclamation should be repealed, she said that. Now I could get ugly, question her parentage and call her all kinds of racist, bitches, but one of us has to show some class and take the high road.

She gets off on the reaction that she draws out, much like a child. She makes illogical statements that she cannot defend, pretending to debate issues. She just repeats the same stuff over and over each time louder and louder, calls names, shouts down her interviewer if he doesn't agree and moves on to another outrageous position.

She does make a lot of money as a public speaker traversing the country, but does anyone take her seriously. I mean yes she says outrageous things but the first thing noted about her in nearly every introduction that I've seen has been that she is blonde, leggy and wears micro-mini skirts. Remind you of anyone?

I hope that when she crawls up on that big stage and stands there to greet her audience in the micro-mini, that she's not wearing patent leather shoes.

We already know she lives in a glass house and it's just a matter of time before it cracks...

John Boehner's Voodoo Econ Plan

Got a question for you....given a choice between a 40 year old Edsel and a 2011 hybrid Explorer, which car would you drive? Or to put it another way, if you were asked to give up your I-pad computer and required to work on an Apple IIe, in order to do your job, would you be happy to make the change?

For most, the answer to both questions is a resounding "no!" No Edsel and no Apple IIe.

The Edsel was a lousy car, conceived by an ego driven business mogul paying homage to his son of the same name, that thankfully didn't last very long. Nobody would buy it and those who did, complained about its inefficiency and bad ride.  The old Apple computer was great for its time, back in the day. However it is vastly outclassed by 21st century computing machines. Completely inefficient by today's standards.

New and modern with better ease of use has always ruled the day and pushed humans further into the future. Progress is a good one word description.

Yet, with the American love for the shiny and new,  why do we still embrace a 40 year old economic theory that has never worked? Talking about voodoo economics, now called  the GOP plan for job creation, that Speaker of the House John Boehner will unveil today during another rotary club speech in Middletown.

The complete plan is on Boehner's website. You can read it here.

To sum it up it is heavy on more tax cuts for the wealthy, budget reductions for all social programs including killing medicare and social security, as well as a  massive elimination of regulations designed to protect the middle class from predatory corporations. It is pretty much a rewrite of  Congressman Paul Ryan's budget plan, which is a rewrite of the plan put forth by Bush the younger, which was a rewrite of the Contract on America, which was a rewrite on Bush the Elder's plan, which was inherited from Ronald Reagan's voodoo economics, spiced up by the fictional free market philosophies created by writer Ayn Rand.

 SOPDD...same old plan, different day.

Nothing new dating all the way back to the day Ronald Reagan came up with the plan to screw the middle class into oblivion. Bush the elder, an old school Republican, actually coined the phrase "voodoo economics" recognizing the falacies of the logic. Then he promptly sold his soul to the devil and became Reagan's VP effectively signing onto and thereby validating the lie that is trickle down economics.

If Bush had stood firm, voodoo economics might have gone the way of the Edsel. Instead it continues to hang around today, 40 years later, helping more conservative right wing zealots nail down the lid on the coffin of middle America.

Reagan promised to balance the budget in 4 years...he didn't.  Then he promised to balance the budget in 4 more years...he didn't. Bush the Elder found himself in the unenviable position of attempting to balance the budget while promising not to raise taxes...he couldn't.

Along comes Bill Clinton who stops the trickle down craziness and low and behold the budget balances and son of a gun, there is is even a budget surplus.

Then Bush the younger comes in and promptly reinstates trickle down..slashes taxes...starts two wars illegally...authors a massive social program with no way to pay for it...usurps the civil liberties and freedoms of American citizens. ends most deregulation allowing business to run roughshod and amok and suddenly America is on the brink of collapse.

Come 2008, The American people, tired of the illegal wars, and a tanking economy, wrap this pile of dogstuff into a  leaky brown paper bag and hand it to Barack Obama and tell the anointed "magic negro"  to dispose of it like a a good boy, quickly, which is of course, impossible.

To make matters worse, they don't give BTMN a full four years to effect change....the American people give him two years instead of four to scrub the congressional hallways clean. They don't give him any help...just tell him  to git her done.

Obama has accomplished many wonderful things for the American people...almost everything except create jobs, leaving the American people very unhappy with the situation and still seeking change.

The definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting change. Well, that is exactly what the American people keep doing. Unhappy with Obama's apparent timidity and or unwillingness to act more decisively, the midterm elections were used to reinstate  the teabag driven GOP, which immediately took it upon itself to declare war on women and children. The destruction of the middle class was returned to the front burner.

Boehner and company ran on the premise that they would create jobs....They have not...In fact...they haven't tried being too busy pushing their outdated, and bigoted social mores onto the rest of the population. From the midterms on, it has been painfully obvious once again, that the only agenda for the GOP is to dismantle the great society, take women out of the workforce and defeat Barack Obama at all costs, even if it means sinking America. Long live trickle down economics.

And it will, unless America breaks the crazy loop in which it is caught and rejects the voodoo creation that is the Ryan/Boehner/GOP's Job Creation plan, once and for all.

Friday Rap

Clarence's Ex

It boggles the brain as to why Virginia Thomas, wife of Uncle Clarence Thomas, would suddenly, out of the blue contact Anita Hill, to demand an apology for speaking out against the horndog activities of her then Supreme Court nominee husband, 19 years after the fact.

Why? Well, only she knows. Some people simply can't live unless they are enveloped in chaos and drama.

The problem with stirring up old stuff is that it may start to percolate and cook again, bringing out new stuff....like an old ex girlfriend, who kept her mouth shut 19 years ago, but has now decided to join in the conversation.

Judge Lillian MeEwen is Clarence's ex and she's written a book. There is a lot to digest, but basically the lady said Clarence's “hobby” was office-ho-hoppin'.”

You can read the whole article here.

If Judge McEwen had spoken out and Angela Wright had been allowed to testify, maybe there would have been no Uncle Clarence on the Supreme Court. At least not the one we're presently stuck with in place.

Who is Angela Wright? Well she is a journalist who used to work with Uncle when he was head of EEOC. She is also an attorney, I believe. She also had problems with Thomas when he was her boss. He fired her from the federal agency, in fact. He kept asking about the size of her breasts and one time showed up unannounced at her home, looking for.....

He also reportedly harassed other women at work in the same way...and she was set to testify about it...but was blocked by several Congressmen...two of which were named Alan Simpson and Joe Biden... all of this leading to Thomas' confirmation.

You can read Wright's story here.

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Dubya Speaks

The walking, talking delusion that is George W. Bush is about to release his memoirs of his eight years as America's 43^rd president. Excerpts are leaking and in them Dubya says he is proudest of protecting the country in time of great peril.

He also says he is sorry that he didn't privatize Social Security.

That's like a bus driver telling his passengers...”I was headed toward the cliff but ran out of gas before I could drive it over the ledge.”

A number of GOP are not happy about the timing of Bush's memoir, calling the timing “selfish and stupid.”

The GOP really shouldn't fret..those of us living through the aftermath and wreckage of the Bush-lite years haven't forgotten and plan on voting accordingly, regardless of what Bush's ghost writer packed into the tome.

To date, teabaggers have not demonstrated any literary acumen, as witnessed by their signs and placards, so I don't think they will be running out and buying the book to jumpstart their memories of what got us into this mess in the first place. So the delusional base is safe.

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DADT

On...Off...On...Off....like a kid playing with a damn light switch. It is frustrating when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, however the tunnel is six football fields long and your feet are tired from walking...

What do you do? You keep walking, period.

Obama has said, DADT will end on his watch...his watch is not even half over and some are running scared and angry....holding their breath because it hasn't been done as quickly as they would like..

Honestly....I want it done yesterday...But then I feel that way about civil rights...about
women's rights...about immigrants rights....

As a woman....I'm still waiting...as a Black American....I'm still waiting....as a gay American...I'm still waiting...

But I am not gonna turn my back on the one person who has done more than any other politician in the history of this country...not when he needs us most...

To paraphrase Fannie Lou Hamer....”I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired of spoiled, selfish gay white men and women”

Gay Whites...talking about not voting for Obama...give me a fucking break...you can play victim all you want...but you were born camoflauged....your sex....your skin, protect you and allow you to blend in no matter what the system, or who's in charge...you are to the manner born...you don't have to hide....you just want a bigger piece of the pie...

All I want is a frickin' crumb...I can't hide...I can't blend in...I can't be a natural master of the universe like you..

Try being a woman...a transgender...or god forbid... try and see if your selfish miniscule little mind can actually imagine being black in America for longer than the time it takes me to type this sentence...

Sitting out the midterms is gonna do what....is DADT gonna end on November 3^rd because you didn't vote and the GOP suddenly gets a clue?

(Note to the immature....holding your breath til you turn blue only works on mommie or your sugar daddy...not in the real world)

Do you think that because a couple of power gay guys opened their closet door, and stepped outside, that suddenly being gay and republican is the new look?

Putting the old white guys back in power makes the potential good stuff on the table go away...is that what you want?

Think about it...it's okay to get mad...feel it...but then go do the work instead of sulking and sucking on your thumb....

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Remember...despite what the right tells you....Ignorance is not a virtue..nor is it attractive..

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Vote November 2nd-Obama taking office was his decision to stand in front of a freight rain traveling downhill at 200 miles per hour...He needs some help from us to find the brake...

Friday Music

And So it Begins....

Folks, we’ve been back doored, bamboozled, misled, screwed with...insert your own adjective. The financial crisis is a smoke screen for some other stuff going on.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a column about some new laws that went into effect doing away with some vital protections within our democracy. You can read the column here.

The laws passed in October, 2006, made it easier for the president to declare martial law. The new rules also suspended Posse Comitatus of 1878, which prevented the deployment of army troops on American soil for use against American citizens... Well....

As of October first, of this year, according to The Army Times, the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry will be assigned to day to day duty under the direction of Homeland Security for one year.

"They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological,
radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack. . . .” according to the article.

You can read the more detailed version, here.

I’m not saying that anyone is mounting a coup of America...yet...It’s just that all of the pieces are falling into place and if I can put them together...then so can anyone else...

Combine the military deployment with Patriot Act ramifications and what you could have is a quiet, bloodless revolution. The Patriot Act, among other things, did away with Habeas Corpus...That is your right to know why you’ve been arrested and thrown in jail....That right no longer exists in America thanks to Bush and his neocons...

And if you think this financial bailout is going to help us...you got another think coming....Bush is selling this bailout the same way he sold the Iraq invasion...Through fear and intimidation..

If someone doesn’t stop this travesty....then once again, we’ve been had without benefit of Vaseline...

W.T.F.?!

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.-maya angelou

I’ve just been listening to our sitting President, the short timer, talk about the current economic crisis. This is the second straight day that he has come out of the White House to talk to the people about the stuff going on, on Wall Street.

He spoke less than five minutes and took no questions yesterday. Bush was so brief that Charlie Gibson was left without words and nothing to say. Gibson’s shock was visible. The MSM had obviously expected more.

Today, Shrub spoke for about five minutes longer. He took no responsibility for what is going on, preferring to dump the problem onto Congress with a kind of “okay, now do something” attitude.

Again, he took no questions and simply walked off leaving Treasury Secretary Paulson flapping in the wind.

I think we are inching closer to the kind of national commission that was put into place during the savings and loan crisis several years ago. Those who don’t remember that scandal should crack open a history book or two. Or google it, you can find the information readily enough.

While you’re at it, look up the Keating Five Scandal, because it ties into not only the savings and loan mess, but also today’s presidential campaign.

Since we’re looking back, I found an interesting article on the Warren Harding and Teapot Dome...What? You say....check it out...it weighs heavily on what’s happening today.....


And let’s call these bailouts what they are.....Socialism at work.....We are seeing, I believe the death of American Capitalism...But I’ll save that thought for another day...I’m still mulling that one over....

The Politics of Mendacity

Lies- “The refuse of fools and cowards.” -Lord Chesterfield

An apt description of the current events in this political campaign for president. I’m tired of this “he said/she said bullshit...” The circus has become maddeningly dangerous in its trivialization of probably the most important election of our lifetime.

There were actually a bunch of Lord Chesterfields. The Earldom was created for the Stanhope family back in 1628. The Lord who is so oft quoted by writers and scholars appears to be Phillip, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield. He was a man of letters, that’s a writer in today’s parlance, and very popular with the royals.

Judging from his background, Stanhope would not have hesitated to call a pig in a poke..a pig in a poke. Euphemisms were not his style. So in keeping with his spirit, writers, journalists, bloggers, columnists and others, should just say what they mean.

John McCain is lying, period.....with the release of every political ad, he gets dirtier, nastier and more dishonorable. I personally have bottomed out with this latest on sex education.

To paraphrase Fannie Lou Hamer....I’m sick and tired of being nice and respectful...

How much shit can one person throw and expect to remain untouched or clean? The GOP has long practiced the fine art of prevarication...repeating the lie over and over...making it seem like fact...because if one hears it over and over...maybe it’s true.....more often than not...it’s not...

How many good men and women have to be debased by the crap hurled by this bigoted, racialistic, elitist group whose arrogance and collective ego astounds me. Just when I think I’ve seen and heard it all, they top themselves, again and again.

It’s time to call John McCain, what he is......a lying adulterer...who voted against the MLK holiday...who, in 2000, supported the flying of confederate flags above state houses...He later apologized for both of these deeds.....But it’s obvious from his actions...he didn’t mean it and he didn’t learn..

Now he has embraced the practices of Karl Rove, hiring his acolytes, in a blatant attempt to steal another election for the republican party.

Make no mistake about it, Sarah Palin is a pawn, a smoke screen...someone trotted out simply to divert attention away from the man himself. He can’t compete on the issues, on stature, in thought and creativity. He is not smart enough to be president. The line from his first wife to Sarah Palin is a clear indication of how he feels about women...use ‘em and lose ‘em...and on to the next beauty queen.

The road to the future is not a loop back through the jungles of a prisoner war camp. The days of General Eisenhower and Captain John F Kennedy died in the swift boat attacks on John Kerry in 2004. War heroes are celebrated, but no longer considered the ultimate leaders in times of peace.

Vision and creativity are needed to get our collective asses out of the bonfire that George II threw us into eight years ago. It’s got to start now...

We may not get another chance..

Ann Coulter: Political Punditry's Paris Hilton

I've spent the past several years ignoring the "one note samba" that is political commentator Ann Coulter.

For those of you who don't know, she is a self described far right wing conservative who hates liberals and just loves her some George Bush.

She's got everyone up in arms this week for attacking four women who lost their husbands in the bombing of the World Trade Centers. Coulter accuses the women of reveling in the deaths of their spouses, using their deaths for political and monetary gain.

Coulter makes these accusations while traveling the talk show circuit to promote her latest book. She also doesn't see any problem with Dubya using 9/11 for his political purpose. Or maybe she just didn't see his campaign ads when he was running for re-election. People as busy as her rarely watch TV and I doubt she's even heard of TIVO.

The reason I ignore her is that she says things to get your goat. Things like, The Emancipation Proclamation should be repealed, she said that. Now I could get ugly, question her parentage and call her all kinds of racist, bitches, but one of us has to show some class and take the high road.

She gets off on the reaction that she draws out, much like a child. She makes illogical statements that she cannot defend, pretending to debate issues. She just repeats the same stuff over and over each time louder and louder, calls names, shouts down her interviewer if he doesn't agree and moves on to another outrageous position.

She does make a lot of money as a public speaker traversing the country, but does anyone take her seriously. I mean yes she says outrageous things but the first thing noted about her in nearly every introduction that I've seen has been that she is blonde, leggy and wears micro-mini skirts. Remind you of anyone?

I hope that when she crawls up on that big stage and stands there to greet her audience in the micro-mini, that she's not wearing patent leather shoes.

We already know she lives in a glass house and it's just a matter of time before it cracks...

Honorable War, An Oxymoron if there ever was one

Details of what happened at Haditha are just beginning to break. The incident happened last November 2005 in Iraq. According to reports, one of our marines died in a bomb attack. In an effort to root out who set off the bomb, the dead marine's brothers in arms went on a killing spree, during which at least 24 civilians were killed, including several women and children and a 77-year-old man, none of them armed.

The incident has been reported upon a couple of times since it happened. There was even a quickly opened probe and just as quickly closed military investigation. But now, the pictures are showing up and other soldiers privy to the alleged cover up, are stepping forward to talk. Congressman, officials at the Pentagon, and the talking heads on television are expressing surprise and outrage over the fact that innocent people may have died and that America's reputation hangs in the balance due to the alleged actions of a few over stressed young people. My question is why? Why is anyone surprised at this latest incident?

It's not the first time soldiers have snapped, think back to Vietnam and the My Lai massacre. There have been others, not as well documented, perhaps. But atrocities in war happen. War itself is an atrocity. Do we Americans think that only the other guy butchers and kills civilians?

Do we Americans think our soldiers are so well trained and well mannered and so honorable that they would never stoop to commit such horrible acts? If that were the case then why do so many Vets come back physically but not mentally able to deal with what they encountered.

Face it people. Our front line in this illegal police action on terrorism is being manned for the most part by the army reserve. Most of whom signed up to get an education and maybe twice a month play war games, not to go war for real, leaving their homes and families to rid Iraq of its dictator and bring Democracy to the Middle East. They were basically sent in under equipped and ill prepared for what they are being forced to face. Is it any wonder that some of them, yes even marines, may have lost it?
They are fighting for their lives first and foremost. Survival is what counts. These young kids wake up everyday wondering if this will be their last sunrise. And we expect them to be honorable in all situations? Honor is for old men and generals who never have to fight the wars they start.

The Pentagon is now investigating, The White House is now looking into the matter. Congress has found its voice and is calling for justice. Many soldiers will probably be court martialed for their actions. They will be made scape goats and this latest chapter on this immoral war will be closed. What should actually happen, won't, meaning Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and every other congressional SOB who green lighted this illegal war should be impeached and sent to that maximum security hell hole out west to live out their days watching videos of what they allowed to happen on their watch.

This was never an honorable situation, just more evidence that the American people are allowing themselves to be led by dishonorable men.